From the Cyber Torah Archives

 "And this shall serve as a sign on your hand and a reminder between your eyes - in order that the teaching of the Lord shall be in your mouth - that with a mighty hand God freed you from Egypt. (Ex 13:9)"

Our Rabbis have always taken these words as the origin of the commandment to wear Tefillin.  Each morning (except for Shabbat and Holidays) Jews are supposed to wrap Tefillin as part of the daily service.  Tefillin are black leather boxes with scrolls of the Shma in them that have leather straps that can be bound on the head and the arm.  We take the verse above literally and bind a box with the story of the Exodus from Egypt on our arm and forehead.

The first time I ever saw someone wearing Tefillin I found it bizarre and exotic - but had little understanding of what it had to do with prayer.  Prayer happens when we recite together from a book in Hebrew that I don’t (or at the time didn't) understand.  Maybe prayer happens spontaneously - when I am somewhere especially beautiful, or particularly in danger, or especially happy.  It certainly has little if anything to do with wrapping leather boxes on my body.

Yet prayer is far more than Hebrew words out of the siddur.  It is that as well - but prayer includes the music and the feeling associated with those words.  Further, reciting words only partly addresses one of the fundamental problems of prayer:  making concrete feelings and emotions for a Creator experienced only indirectly.

Tefillin directly help us with this problem of learning how to feel God.   What does it mean to love God with all our heart and might?  The Midrash teaches that we should love God more than money, more than parents, and more than spouses.  The Midrash mentions all these categories of money, parents, and spouses to teach that we should love God in the same way we love each of those human relationships.  By combining different types of loves, we then come to love God more than any other relationship in our lives.  We can desire money and pursue it with tremendous energy - similarly with God.  We can love and desire a spouse - and similarly God.

The sensuality of Tefillin help us learn to express ourselves sensually towards God.  There is something intentionally erotic about wrapping leather on our bodies to express our love of God.  It begins to take the abstract idea that our sexual relationship with a spouse serves as a model for love of God and gives it concrete form.  We relate to God physically and in so doing learn to desire God.

Prayer is an extremely difficult endeavor in part because God can feel so distant from us.  Unlike a spouse or parent, God never directly unambiguously responds to us.  It is hard to feel an emotion for an entity that we cannot directly experience as we directly experience other people in our lives.  The Shma asks us to find a way though - "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul…"  If prayer is the process by which we learn how to feel connected with God, Tefillin are a primary means by which we learn to love God.

We have minyan at the Synagogue Mondays and Thursdays at 7:45 and Sundays at 10 with a breakfast on Mondays and Thursdays.  We together attempt to reach out to God I community.  There are always extra sets of Tefillin and I am always happy to show anyone how they are worn.  In addition, we can order sets for anyone who would like.  Please join us and learn to experience the holiness of this mitzvah.

Shabbat Shalom